Better Behavior

Scaring the Sandinistas

By supporting the rebels opposed to Nicaragua's Marxist government, is the U.S. trying merely to harass the Sandinistas or to topple their government? Whatever the objective, a new CIA assessment provided to congressional oversight committees argues that the 10,000 to 12,000 U.S.-backed contras simply lack the training, financing and political support required to overthrow the Sandinistas. The secret report, details of which emerged last week, noted that the guerrillas would be thwarted by Nicaragua's superior army and militia, which total some 100,000 troops.

Other analysts have already said as much, so the findings did not come as a major surprise. What caught even Washington insiders off guard, however, were subsequent rumors that the White House is considering ways to end its two-year support for the rebel forces. In addition, U.S. policymakers are increasingly fretful that Washington would have to accommodate thousands of the guerrillas as exiles if a negotiated settlement of the region's conflict were ever achieved.

One sign that the White House could be serious about winding down the so-called secret war surfaced last September. In discussions at that time with members of Congress, Administration officials reportedly said that as a precondition for ending hostilities, they intend to ask for a guarantee that the contras will not be prosecuted in Nicaragua. White House officials, however, have denied any plans either for ending support of the contras or for the general amnesty.

Oddly, despite the signals pointing to a diminution of the U.S. role, suspicion is also growing that the Administration may in fact be pondering direct military intervention in Nicaragua. Washington corridors are filled with talk of a plan for a U.S.-backed invasion of Nicaragua some time in 1984. One supposed invasion scheme, reportedly code-named "Pegasus," is said to call for U.S. air and sea support for an attack by the Hondurans, the contras and possibly other Central American nations.

Such talk may be intended only to frighten the Sandinistas into behaving in a more democratic fashion. If so, then that campaign may have begun to pay off. Nicaragua has taken a number of conciliatory steps in recent weeks, perhaps because of U.S. pressure and almost certainly in response to warnings from West European leaders that were conveyed to Nicaragua's Interior Minister Tomas Borge during his October tour of the continent. The Europeans bluntly told Borge that they might no longer provide financial and diplomatic support for the regime if it did not moderate its increasingly totalitarian ways.

The Sandinistas have announced that 1,000 Cuban advisers have left Nicaragua and that others will leave if El Salvador and Honduras expel their U.S. advisers. The government has also let it be known that leftist Salvadoran rebels are no longer welcome on Nicaraguan soil, forcing them to find another haven. In addition, the Sandinistas have hinted that elections will be held in 1985, and have made overtures to leaders of the Roman Catholic Church and the country's embattled business community to sit down and discuss their differences.

The government has also eased its tight censorship of the nation's only opposition newspaper, La Prensa. The paper, however, announced last week that because of a shortage of newsprint it would suspend publication indefinitely on Dec. 7. Editor Pedro Joaquin Chamorro blamed the shutdown on the government's refusal to release U.S. dollars to buy newsprint. He also acknowledged that censorship had eased, though not ended. Indeed, his announcement of the shutdown was censored completely.

The Nicaraguan moves have met with intense skepticism at the White House. Administration officials are inclined to believe that the reforms are largely cosmetic, aimed at fending off an invasion without achieving any genuine change. Said State Department Spokesman Alan Romberg: "We see no real evidence that the Sandinistas have changed their basic philosophy toward human rights and expression of views by opposition groups." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.